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Sunday, April 4, 2010

"Zombi 2" Movie Review

I'm excited to bring you another guest post by Jason Stein of Jason Takes Portland. Jason recently had the opportunity to view Lucio Fulci's "Zombi" and is back to share with us a review.

I was finally able to see Italian gore master Lucio Fulci's "Zombi 2" at a monthly grindhouse night. Nothing makes a great movie better than experiencing it in the proper atmosphere. Just to be clear, there is no "Zombi part 1". "Zombi 2" is an indirect sequel to "Dawn of the Dead" which was huge in Europe and released as Zombi. The two movies have no connection other than zombies.

Fulci's film begins with a boat showing up in the Hudson harbor carrying a bloated zombie and a mysterious note. The note is written by Matool, a researcher on a tropical island, and intended to be a warning to his daughter, Anne. She meets a reporter who is investigating the boat and the two decide to go to the tropical island to figure out what happened. Upon arrival, they enlist the help of an American couple to find Matool. What they find is an island where no one stays dead and zombies literally pop up all over the place. Gory zombie fun ensues.

This is low budget, high gore film-making at its best. The girls are hot and take off their shirts randomly. The zombie effects are cheap and simple, yet gruesomely effective. The acting is lame and the sets are cardboard but this movie is too much fun to care. Fulci is a great director who turns budgetary obstacles into assets and gives the audience exactly what they want. There are numerous memorable scenes including a very disturbing eye puncturing and a stand-off in a burning church. The best of all is the infamous zombie versus shark sequence:

Let me recap what you just saw: A man in zombie make-up fighting/biting a real tiger shark. Awesome! This is one of the best zombie scenes ever filmed. It is funny, absurd, well executed and scary at the same time. Mention must be made of the final scene. I will not ruin it, but it is brilliant for its shock and low budget ingenuity. You will not find the social commentary of George Romero's "Living Dead" series here but you will find just pure zombie fun.